Search engines are indispensable tools when it comes to getting traffic and qualified prospects for your business. According to current research by Marketing Sherpa, about 134 million people in the U.S. use search engines when looking for information…

… and they use search engines regularly.

Another interesting data worth mentioning is that 63 percent look only at the first page of the search engine results page.

Search Engine Marketing Statistics

Before you yell at me about starting this blog post with statistics (sorry statisticians, I find it boring), I’ll make it quick.

In 2007, total spending for search engine marketing, including paid placement, paid inclusion, organic search engine optimization and its technology exceeded US$12 billion. The research projected the expenditures will grow to $25.2 billion in 2011.

Search marketing was the most important advertising tactic for 2007, said 61.7% of respondents in a survey by Datran Media. This was right after email marketing, which 83.2% of the survey participants agreed.

From Branding to Product Placement

If you want to be there when people search for information related to your brand, product or service, you need to integrate search marketing into your overall strategy. The two main and separate search marketing strategies include search engine optimization (the organic listing) and pay-per-click advertising (the paid placement).

Exactly how you’d like to use search engines for your business is entirely up to you. However, you need to have a strategy and spend wisely based on your budget.

With paid search (pay per click), you ads will appear almost immediately in certain search engines, but you must pay per click and the cost may actually add up very fast if you’re not careful and the process to convert the traffic to prospects and customers is not tested yet.

Organic search, on the other hand, is a long term strategy. Getting listed itself takes a few weeks to months. You can speed it up but for highly competitive niches, you need a lot of budget and patience before you’ll see results.

The nice thing about organic search is, once you secure the top rankings, the traffic flows in and you don’t have to pay a cent.

Overview of Search Engine Optimization

Without getting into technical details, basically here’s how search engine optimization works.

Search engine algorithms are proprietary and no one besides their employees know them. However, based on researches from many experts in the industry through thousands of tests, they’ve found patterns that make web sites and web pages more likely to rank on search engines.

Google gives some hints within its help information but no specifics. Although it is not accurate, there are things that have been proven to be beneficial to search rankings.

Each expert, book or consultant may say differently, so if you want to hire one of them, make sure they really know what they’re doing and have a good track record.

Generally, you need to create optimized web pages based on the keywords people search in search engines. High quality content is very important because the key to make the search users come back and use the search engines repeatedly is relevant and quality information in the search results.

You also want to promote your content. Currently inbound links from other authority sites are very important. Think of each of them as a vote for the quality of your page.

From writing the page to promoting it is a process. Aggressive promotion may get your site or page penalized, so make sure you know how to do it right. The result, again, is rewarding and worth the effort though.

Pay Per Click Advertising

Unlike search engine optimization, with pay per click advertising, you can have your ads on the search result pages immediately after you launch. Most of the paid search work this way.

You bid on keywords that are relevant to the product or service, or anything you want to promote or drive traffic to and compete with other advertisers. You pay each time search users click on your ads.

That’s really a simple way to explain it. Certainly there are more details involved in it. First, you need to write compelling copy that makes people click on your ads. Some search engines reward advertisers who write good ads by taking the click through rate into the cost equation.

You also need to bid the right keywords and match the keyword with the ads. When the visitors click, you must present them with relevant information related to what you advertise immediately. Making web page that converts is also one thing that you need to constantly improve to make your campaign break even or profit.

Conclusion

Search marketing is a powerful way to tap into search engine traffic. Your web pages can either show up in the organic listing, or you can pay for sponsored links. Both can be beneficial if used correctly.

Search engine traffic can be very targeted if you know how to attract the right kind of users and match them to the right offer. Consider it as part of your online marketing mix.